Operative/Scoundrel from a Guardian's Perspective

As you can see in the title, I play a Guardian. It is my hopes to remain as objective as possible in this post. My only regret is that I am not yet level 50, even though I wished to abstain from posting until then. Unfortunately, time is not a luxury that has been afforded us.

As many of you know, there is a patch that will be incoming to live servers soon that will effectively nerf, and in my opinion break, the Operative/Scoundrel class.

So that we can be aware of what we are discussing here, here are the patch notes that have been posted:

Acid Blade/Flechette Round: Now provides 30% armor penetration while active.Jarring Strike/K.O.:This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds.Hidden Strike/Shoot First: The damage output of this ability has been decreased by approximately 20% to control burst damage and because it was enabling significantly faster than intended kills in PvP.

1. My biggest concern about these nerfs for the Operative/Scoundrel class is that this update is far too soon.

Level 50 brackets and the biochem nerf have not been in place long, and it seems that to get an accurate reading of where classes truly lie in the balanced/imbalanced scale, there would need to be a couple more weeks of monitoring Level 50 brackets specifically. In addition to more time needed to get an accurate reading, a larger pool of well equipped Level 50 players would be needed as well to have a more diverse sample.

2. These updates will break the Operative/Scoundrel in PvE.

Reducing a burst damage classes' ability to do burst damage is not only totally reconstructing the type of class that it is, but is making it undesirable for high end group instances. We will have a playable class that cannot heal or DPS effectively, and will most likely be overlooked for classes that are specific healers and specific DPSers.

3. Starting nerfs now will only create a perception vacuum that will be filled by other classes who will, in turn, be nerfed as well.

What I mean by perception vacuum is that certain classes throughout a game fluctuate in and out of the community's perception of what is currently "OP" and "Imbalanced." Sometimes, these statements are accurate. Unfortunately, those loudest on the forums tend to not have all the facts, or have blinders on and do not wish to see the full picture. Starting the nerf bat system will only bring other classes up to be nerfed in the future and will start a cycle that will end with a broken PvP system, as seen by other games.

In all honesty, if any nerfs are being handed out so soon, then two other classes should be receiving nerfs as well. The Bounty Hunter/Trooper and Sage/Sorcerer. Both of these classes are nearly impossible to kill in 1v1 fights, and just because their damage is not burst, they are often overlooked when it comes to forum QQing. These classes, in my opinion, would need a fair amount of nerfing as well if any nerf is going to be applied to the Operative/Scoundrel class.

4. This nerf is overkill. I appreciate the devs attempt to take into consideration the feelings of the forum community, but in this case it is way too much. The first problem is that feelings are often unreliable and biased. The second is that they produce a perceived picture that is often over-bloated.

There are two "nerfs" that I would implement to the Operative/Scoundrel classes if I was the dev team (and keep in mind that I said if any nerfs were to be implemented, Bounty Hunters/Troopers and Sages/Sorcerers would need nerfs as well to keep balance). The fixes I would implement would be these:

Acid Blade/Flechette Round:Now provides 35% armor penetration while active and reduces the damage over time applied by 20%.Jarring Strike/K.O.:This ability now knocks the target down for 1.5 seconds, but resolve fill is cut by 50% as well.

These are the changes I would make, and these changes would be made only if valid evidence was seen in a couple of weeks time since the recent patch via observing well equipped level 50's in the Level 50's bracket.

Conclusion: If this preemptive and jump-of-the-gun patch is indeed implemented without the above suggestions and a nerf to Bounty Hunters/Troopers and Sages/Sorcerers as well, it will be a very messy and very bad situation that will most likely result in lost subscriptions and a discontent player base in addition to an entire class feeling shunned and not valued.

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As a scoundrel in full champ...if an operative opens on me w/o trinket I am dead before I get up and vice versa. That is not good gameplay, I am for these changes. It will raise the skillcap of the class and make fights more drawn out and engaging than the current stop & pop gameplay that we currently have.

I am not really sure what people think the class does after the burst.

Most the time it is trying to get away from Trooper/Bounty Hunter AOE and ten thousand different stuns, which likely you can't do.

I always count it as a trade off.

I kill someone the rest kill me, both are increadibly fast at 50.

If the OP/Smug is killing more than one player when he comes out of the initial burst it is because the opposition is not playing as a team and has no healing/shielding, which is such a horrible comparison at this stage of the game.

Show me one video of an Operative killing a lvl 50 Tank in pvp gear 1v1 in under 30 seconds and I will be very impressed. The people calling for the nerfs were lvl 15s getting 3 shotted by OPs in pvp gear. I still do not believe these nerfs will go into place, if they do I guess I can go back to playing dota or try a new spec cause Concealment will be useless

I agree with the post creator.
I am operative and I agree ,that my crits can be 5000+,but they are only good for taking down 1-2 guys.
I wonder why BW don't look at that fact that 50% of players are sages/sorc.
I find that class pretty OP and have no idea why BW focused on nerfing ops.

this is the best sentence that i have read on these forums.
shadow can put the same number that the operative but he need cast clairvoyance 2 times and after use the cooldown to do 60 % more cirital on projectand then he can put 7-10k on 3 sec window as the operative,the problem is that the operative it is faceroll:knowdown,6k-3k-vanish-6k-3k
so it si pretty easy, nerf the burst dps and give some sustained or give them ram up time(hello retrys)

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.